The Mayor of Ock Street

The Mayor of Ock Street is elected each year by the
residents of Ock Street and the streets which depend on it. The
election traditionally took place on the Day of the annual horse
fair, and nowadays takes place on the Saturday nearest June 19th
(that means that in 2015 it will be June 20th). The election is
organised by the Morris side and is used as an excuse for
inviting other Morris sides to Abingdon and having a day-long
festival of dance. First dance is outside the Black Swan at 10am.
Residents of Ock street all have the right to vote, and the
election count takes place in the Brewery Tap at 4pm. The
successful candidate, as Mayor, is then chaired along Ock Street
and spends the next year as squire of the Morris side. Dancing
usually continues until 8pm with the last dances performed on the
marketplace, and a supper follows.

The Mayor of Ock Street is in the tradition of ‘Mock
Mayors’. In times gone by mock mayors were widespread. A
mock Mayor's job, analogous to the court jester's job, was to
keep the civic mayor up to scratch. He could be as rude as he
liked, and made sure that the civic mayor fully understood the
townspeople's point of view.

The Candidates

Guest Sides

A group of dancers and musicians who perform English
country dances of the Seventeenth Century in the costume of the
period. All their dances are taken from “The English
Dancing Master” first published by John Playford in 1651.